Category: Restaurants

2025 AGM

OXFORD UNIVERSITY SOUTH WEST FRANCE

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Friday 10 October 2025, 11h.00 for 11h.15

Restaurant Château des Verdots, 24560 Conne-de-Labarde *

A message is being sent to all members. The AGM will be followed by a lunch to which guests are welcome. The price of the three-course lunch, payable on the day and including wine and coffee, is €39. Guests will be able to enjoy a wine tasting while members are in the meeting.

Members: please can you let us know by replying to the email also naming any guest(s) and dietary requirements, not later than Thursday 2 October.

For more details of the site, please see https://www.verdots.com/en.

Next Visit: Napoléon, 16th May

Nigel writes:

Our first 2024 event will be a guided tour on Thursday 16 May of the Musée Napoléon, housed in the Château de la Pommerie at Cendrieux.. The château is the property of a direct descendant of the Emperor. The visit will be preceded by a lunch in the Restaurant Julien in Paunat.

Paunat, to the east of Bergerac and just beyond Lalinde and Trémolat, is an astonishingly beautiful village and we shall be able to lunch either indoors or on the resto’s large terrace in the shadow of the 1000-year-old Abbatiale.

We have undertaken to give both restaurant and venue a clear indication of numbers not later than Tuesday 7 May. Members should reply to Nigel’s email if they wish to come. Further details will be sent over the weekend of 11/12 May to all those indicating they will be coming.

Bauduc

Our OUS SW France association has made a regular habit of chateau visits, characteristically to chateaux in vineyards. Such was our visit on 9th May to the British-owned Chateau Bauduc, notable as a supplier to top chefs such as Gordon Ramsay, Rick Stein and (for those who know North Wales well) Bryan Webb, in whose restaurant members first encountered Bauduc.

It was not the best day for sunning ourselves amongst the vines, but we did note the black vines first planted in 1947 and the netting being tested to protect against the hail which often destroys substantial percentages of the annual production. The chai contains two sections for red and white, generating a substantial volume of production that seemed immense to your correspondant. Shipping to bottling requires an exercise of military precision.

The Chateau has its own website which tells the story of the Quinney’s successful venture and it was Angela who very kindly greeted us in their chateau-home for an extensive degustation of Crémant de Bordeaux, whites and reds.

Sensible planning by Nigel ensured that we were not late for lunch at la Table in Créon where we enjoyed an excellent menu around a single large table, as the photos display (other photos can be found at OUS Bauduc ).

Lot-et-Garonne Lunch, 26 May

Marion writes:
One of the great benefits of our OUS branch is that it gives its members a chance to meet, and then keep up with, many whom we might never otherwise have encountered – and to do so in a friendly and enjoyable manner. At the last AGM it was suggested that individual members might wish to organize informal events in their neighbourhoods :  for those living close by, of course, but also for any others who might wish to attend.
It is with this objective in mind that Jeremy James proposes meeting for lunch  in the village of Laroque-Timbaut (Lot-et-Garonne), on Friday 26th May.

Further details have been sent to members.

Another good restaurant: L’Abricotier

Marion writes:  At “L’Abricotier” in Saint Macaire, we enjoyed an excellent three course lunch, really home-cooked too, for 23€. Very pleasant surroundings : and a quietly stylish service. The lower dining-room opens onto a pretty garden, and there is a large outside terrace for summer eating under the shade of mulberry trees. The owners-chef have been there for 30 years. Address : 3, Rue François Bergoeing (not a spelling mistake !), 33490 Saint Macaire (just off the main Langon – Cadillac road). It’s a good idea to book : 0556768363. Private car park.